Israeli forces fire at bus, nine people killed: Gaza civil defence

Israeli forces killed nine people in an attack on a bus on Friday, said Gaza's civil defence agency on Saturday.

However, the Israeli military said it had fired at a vehicle that crossed the so-called "yellow line".

"Civil defence crews were able to recover nine bodies following the Israeli occupation's targeting of a bus carrying displaced persons east of the Zeitun neighbourhood yesterday," Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the agency, which operates under Hamas authority, told AFP on Saturday.

The victims were members of the Abu Shabaan family and were killed while "trying to check on their home" in the Zeitun neighbourhood, said Bassal.

The Israeli military said a vehicle had been identified crossing the "yellow line", the boundary behind which Israeli troops are stationed under the ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

"The troops fired warning shots toward the suspicious vehicle, but the vehicle continued to approach the troops in a way that caused an imminent threat to them," the military said in a statement.

"The troops opened fire to remove the threat, in accordance with the agreement."

Several incidents ofIsraeli attackhave been reported since the ceasefire between Israeli forces and Hamas began. The truce is now in its second week.

The military has said its troops fired at individuals who approached or crossed the "yellow line".

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have returned to northern Gaza in search of their homes since the ceasefire began, often struggling to find them amid the vast devastation left by more than two years of war.

Several Gazans told AFP said they were unable to locate their houses -- or even familiar landmarks -- in neighbourhoods now buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings and debris.

The densely packed cities of the Gaza Strip, home to more than two million Palestinians, have been reduced to ruins by two years of bombardment and intense fighting between Hamas and the Israeli army.

Massive task of restoring basic necessities in ruined Gaza

The United Nations' aid chief took stock of the monumental task of restoring basic necessities in the devastated Gaza Strip on Saturday, as Israel and Hamas exchanged more human remains, reported AFP.

In a short convoy of white UN jeeps, relief coordinator Tom Fletcher and his team wound their way through the twisted rubble of shattered homes to inspect a wastewater treatment plant in Sheikh Radwan, north of Gaza City.

"I drove through here seven to eight months ago when most of these buildings were still standing and, to see the devastation, this is a vast part of the city, just a wasteland, and it's absolutely devastating to see," he told AFP.